I am the (joint) inventor of a number of U.S. patents disclosing the method and composition of an emergency fuel in the event a motorist runs out of gas on the road. Various compositions were disclosed including, for example, a blend of aromatic and aliphatic mineral spirits (akin to paint thinners) and the resulting product was sold under the trademark “SPARE TANK”. The applicable patents are as follows—
No.Issue Date5,681,358Oct. 27, 19975,853,433Dec. 29, 19985,938,799Aug. 17, 19996,110,237Aug. 29, 20006,113,660Sep. 5, 2000
—and their disclosures and teachings are incorporated by reference herein.
Since then, I have learned of an interesting development in the automotive industry, namely, a high-power spark plug marketed by Enerpulse, Incorporated of Albuquerque, N. Mex. under the trademark “PULSTAR”. This product has been disclosed in the following published patent applications—
US 2007/0262721Published 15 Nov. 2007US 2008/0018216Published 24 Jan. 2008
—the respective disclosures and teachings of which are incorporated by reference herein.
This “PULSTAR” spark plug is intended for automobiles and other vehicles and its purpose is to improve engine efficiency, acceleration power, and gas mileage in standard cars. Their marketing focus is the automobile aftermarket and, eventually, the O.E.M. market. All of their published research and development has been directed to gas-guzzling cars, and there has been no hint or suggestion that this product could be used—not with gasoline—but with non-volatile fuels for an entirely different purpose.
In a completely different “orbit”, for many years the military has been concerned with the transport, storage, handling and use of gasoline for powering certain vehicles and other peripheral equipment using gasoline engines. It is a huge strategic and tactical problem.
For example, at the present time the United States Army brings in gasoline in tanker trucks from Kuwait to Baghdad in large convoys guarded by troops. These convoys of tanker trucks are very inviting targets for terrorists, insurgents and enemy forces. The Navy, on the other hand, uses certain types of equipment (powered by gasoline engines) in Naval shipyards and on the ships at sea, including carriers. To power this equipment, the carrier has a large tank or tanks to store the gasoline, and a direct hit on those tanks by a cruise missile or torpedo could completely disable the ship.
Although there is extensive research and development conducted by the military, including research and development on fuel cells, I am not aware of any instance where the military has found a way to completely eliminate the gasoline altogether, and to power typical gasoline engines with a substantially non-volatile fuel and, especially, a fuel that is readily available. Typical of such fuels are JP-4, JP-8 and Jet A1; presently, JP-8 is very heavily used.
Thus, to remove the strategic and tactical threat while simultaneously greatly simplifying the logistics, it would be very desirable to power the existing gasoline-driven engines by using a standard widely-used non-volatile fuel, such as JP-8, and to provide a relatively simple retrofit kit that can be implemented out in the field.